And those who strive hard for Us, We will most certainly guide them in Our ways; and Allah is most surely with the doers of good. 29:69 The Quran

Genesis of Violence in Iraq

Syed Javed Hussain

Diabolical blood letting in Iraq goes on despite the fact that now it is people’s government which has come into being as a result of popular vote. And also that it is representative of Shia majority in Iraq: that too after fourteen hundred years.

Violence was supposed to have died down; instead, it is flaring up day by day. Although it is difficult to figure out the logic behind the violence in Iraq yet certain parameters of history help one understand the last ditch effort of the enemies of peace, prosperity and human dignity to derail and sabotage new Iraq’s direction to Islamic polity and national aggrandizement.

Iraq is presently having a true Shia Muslim leader as Prime Minister. Although interim Prime Minister Eyad Allawi was also a Shiite, between 1947 and the fall of the monarchy in 1958 four other Shiites Saleh Jabr, Mohammad Sadr, Fadhil Jamali and Abdul Wahhab Marjan served as prime ministers under the monarchy, the Saddamite period produced two Shiite prime ministers, Saadoun Hammadi and Mohammad Hamzah Zubeidi, yet there are certain points of departure between Dr Jaafari and his predecessors.

He does not owe his job either to a king or to a despot. He is the choice of the people of Iraq and has not emerged from closed-door manoeuvres orchestrated by the US-led coalition, as was the case with Allawi.

There is a popular and representative government in power, however, why the phenomenal violence has not subsided or stopped. Why has it flared up sire then? Rather the ire and anger seems to have taken a shift. Now it seems to have taken the direction towards locals.

The American and coalition troops are now chance victims. Markets, crowded Bazaars, Police stations, mosques, and other popular meeting places are hot targets of insurgents. Some sort of diabolical plan set in the gloom of frustration, disillusionment, personal loss and defeat is at play and what is disconcerting to any thinking Muslim is that Islam has been made casualty to the personal agenda of a very few anarchists, Baathists and fanatics who don’t believe in any civilisation.

It was thought that elections would improve the law and order situation at home however, what has been observed is that it has really flared up manifold. Ironically the coalition forces led by the US were not in favour of elections. They wanted a broad based government having equal participation of all sections of society. They wanted to net in all powerful and influential leaders of Iraq so that their influence could be used to stem the violence.

There, however, was a chance that Iraqi masses would have further been alienated as it would tantamount to maintaining a status quo for them: change of faces would easily have been considered cosmetic and rudimentary and would have backfired. A very powerful voice of Iraq which no one could ignore and bypass demanded elections too. Ayatollah Ali M Sistani giving his opinion on the question of elections said, “The ideal mechanism is an election, which many experts believe is possible to hold within the next (few) months with an acceptable level of transparency and credibility.” At that time many pseudo intellectuals tried to twist the meanings of his statement to convince the coalition forces that it was just a “fatwa” which meant an “opinion” and not a “decree” or an “edict,” and Paul Bremer the coalition’s chief civilian administrator should ignore Ayatollah’s demand and go ahead with coalition’s original plan of selecting the interim govt. They believed that Iraqi Shias would not repeat their mistake, of 1920 and keep themselves away from power.

Common sense, however, prevailed and Ayatollah’s demand was met because it was clear as daylight that by ignoring the most powerful voice of present day Iraq no good could be brought to this nation. Elections took place and resulted in a popular government; however, law and order has not improved rather it has deteriorated ever since. What ails Iraq that the law and order situation could not be improved? When we delineate upon the situation we come to know that there are five factors which account for the flaring up of violence in Iraq.

Firstly it is the inexperience of the new officials to deal with the situation. New recruitments were done and not fully trained people were thrown out to deal with seasoned terrorists. Secondly the infrastructure is quite rudimentary and basic to deal with such situations. Generally the security officials and police themselves are soft target of these terrorists, what to talk about peace and security for the masses.

Thirdly as the terrorists have been robbed of any moral ascendancy they ever had in the wake of coalition attack because a dominant majority of Iraq has participated in elections and has chosen the leaders. The narrowing of support base for insurgents have really maddened them and now the so-called “liberalists, revolutionaries, Baathists and the so-called Islamists’ have gone haywire and taken into their deathly slot every section of Iraqi nation. People are paying the price for their liberation. Masses are not willing to support their erstwhile masters under any pretext to redo their yoke to dishonour their self-esteem, wisdom and dignity. Fourthly the insurgents have suddenly found a lot of soft targets.

The majority being hostile to their designs, they are free to do damage to anyone’s life and property because they don’t fear loosing any support which is already non-existing in most of Iraq. There is the religious dimension of this diabolical killing spree. An acute minority, who claims it to be the only Muslim community, cannot tolerate Shia Islam return to Iraq after fourteen hundred years. In their view Shias are “Kafir” non-believers and they must be stopped from gaining power in Iraq.

The writing on the wall is clear: bats cannot wish away the sunshine. Iraqis cannot be condemned forever for their beliefs. They cannot be considered as dissenting fissures of cult, beliefs and sects. They are and have always been a unified nation with a vision of future. They have deep-rooted belief in the destiny of Islam.

They are the most tolerant nation with a very rich and refreshing culture and human institutions. A very few fanatics cannot take hostage of a vibrant nation of 25 million people. Whatever the future course Iraqi nation takes as long as the powerful voices like Ayatollah Sistani are present in Iraq and general Iraqi respect their Islamic sensibilities, no power can subdue Iraq and take away its Islamic identity.

Information

Iraq is presently having a true Shia Muslim leader as Prime Minister. ﻿Although interim Prime Minister Eyad Allawi was also a Shiite, between 1947 and the fall of the monarchy in 1958 four other Shiites Saleh Jabr, Mohammad Sadr, Fadhil Jamali and Abdul Wahhab Marjan served as prime ministers under the monarchy, the Saddamite period produced two Shiite prime ministers, Saadoun Hammadi and Mohammad Hamzah Zubeidi, yet there are certain points of departure between Dr Jaafari and his predecessors.﻿